𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝙻𝚘𝚞𝚍𝚎r. (𝙶𝚊𝚊𝚛𝚊 𝚡 𝚘𝚌)

Confidence ( Chapter 4 )

Noon came around, Gaara had finally eaten, but Ura was growing bored from just standing around doing nothing. She pulled out ten hari and stuck one on each of the cracks of her fingers, then pinned point a spot on the tree she wanted to hit. Throwing them all at once, they hit everywhere on the tree, but that was not what she wanted. Plucking them off and putting them back in her fingers, which opened cuts that were beginning to heal.

Where she lived in the village, Ura was well known for her patience and her quiet determination. She always took the hard way to learn something, that was why she kept to herself most of the time. Ura always had something to do, whether it was merely chores, or she was practicing something with her hari or her umbrellas.

Yet, that was the past, this was now, she had to focus on what was happening at that second so if anything went wrong, she could fix it. She noticed Gaara stopped eating and was back at the same tree where his gourd was, so Ura began to clean up the trash, she wrapped up the blanket with the trash inside, and stuck inside a bush. Sundown finally came, Ura was so relieved, she was so nervous around Gaara, trying to make it look like she didn't care. Her senses sharpened when she heard a twig crack, she readied her hari and one umbrella, preparing her attacks.

"It's Baki, put your toys away," Gaara growled.

Ura's patience was running at Gaara's mouth, but she put her weapons away, one of these days she was going to snap at him...

"At least someone was able to notice...Kankurou and Temari are waiting," Baki walked off, Ura and Gaara followed close behind.

Temari was fully awake, she didn't seem too happy that she was the one that had to look weak, but besides that, she looked ok. Kankurou approached Ura, "Well, you probably had a wonderful time."

"Shut up..." Ura looked away.

Baki waited until the sun was fully down, "From what i've learned, our target has a lot of followers, but they're weak so we don't need to worry about them. If we can get passed them, then it will be a straight shot at our target."

The four genin followed their instructor on the tops of roofs, in allies, until they approached an abandoned shrine. Baki turned to them as they hid on a far off rooftop, "This is your first mission, so you better get it together and do it without flaw. Your deaths will be your own fault, not mine, remember that. When you go in there, slaughter anything unknown that moves. We'll all meet at the room he'll be hiding at, then i'll take care of the rest."

As soon as they barged in, blood began to shed as the ninjas fought the paid mercenaries to protect the wanted man. Ura slashed and cut throats as Kankurou poisoned most of them, Temari was crushing bones with her fan, Gaara was turning them to dust with his sand, and Baki was killing them the normal way.

One grabbed Ura's long hair and tugged down on it, sending her to the floor, other men saw and rushed over to tear her apart. With one swift move, she opened one umbrella and twirled it, sending hari all into their throats. She quickly got up and snapped a few necks by hitting the mercenaries with her umbrellas to their heads. Kankurou looked like he was getting too many men on him, so she rushed over and sent a whirl of hari into their backs, killing them.

"Thanks..." Kankurou took a breather.

"No problem," Ura stabbed a man in his throat.

Mercenaries were no longer coming, and the rest were dead, Baki looked around, making sure there weren't any traps, "Ok, this place is cleared...all we have left is our target...do whatever it takes to kill him, all we need is his headband."

Carefully walking through the halls, cobwebs infested on the ceilings of the dark corridor, rats and spiders rustled at their feet. Little candles lit their way, but besides that, nothing could be seen, they knew the walls were rock hair, and the floor was a cobble stone floor.

"Not scared are ya, Ura?" Kankurou nudged her.

"I'm not..." Ura nearly leaped from seeing a huge black spider at her feet, "I'm not..."

"Kankurou! Don't mess around, you're not taking this seriously!" Baki snapped, "We're almost there...don't blow it.."

"Yeah, yeah..." Kankurou yawned, "I just wanna get this over with..."

Soon, they saw a huge, wrotten wooden door in front of them, they all knew where this led to. Ura gulped, she didn't know what to expect from then on, her battle with his clone terrified her enough, but fighting the real thing...that was true terror. Baki blew the door up, they all entered, all expecting the unexpected. A man of reflective skin stood with a smirk on his face, "Good evening, sand people, I didn't expect you to find me so quickly."

"Leave this to me..." Baki took a few steps forward, "Watch my back."

His students were prepared, Ura lightly trembled, but when she looked at Gaara, he seemed so unnerved by this, like he knew what he was doing... Gaara stood with his crossed over his chest, like he was waiting for the chance to kill his target. That inspired Ura, he looked so confident that he was not going to die that night, so it made Ura feel stronger, she had a feeling she would be ok too.

Baki and the metal man clashed kunai with pure iron, it looked like Baki wasn't standing a chance against him! Temari and Kankurou looked seriously nervous about how bad their sensei was nearly failing, so they turned to Ura and Gaara, "We need to get in there, or Baki will be killed."

Gaara didn't seem to pay attention to what his siblings were saying, so he didn't pay much mind to it. Ura, although, wanted to know what their plans were, "So what are we going to do?"

"Kankurou will use Karasu as a distraction, making it seem like he's going to attack, when the metal man takes Kankurou's trap, i'll swoop in and get his attention. That's when you come in, Ura, you have to melt some of his metal so Kankurou can put some poison in him to where he's weak and brittle. Then Gaara can finish him off because he'll be too weak to make another move," Temari explained.

"Sounds good to me," Kankurou commented as he did a few hand signs, "Ready to go."

Gaara looked at them through the corner of his eyes, at least he got to do something he loved to do, kill. Kankurou threw Karasu near the metal man, getting the target's attention away from Baki for a few moments. When the metal man turned his full body at the puppet, he thought it was actually Kankurou and held the puppet, until the head fell off... Temari swooped in on her fan, swirling around him, the metal man dropped the puppet and tried to get Temari, then he realized he was in a trap, "Not this time..."

He grabbed Temari and threw her over to where the real Kankurou, Ura, and Gaara were, then he went after them at full speed.

"Ura!! Get the hari in him!" Temari yelled as she was slammed against the wall.

Kankurou quickly dipped a hari in some poison, Ura did a few hand signs in front of the poisonous hari, then took a dead leaf to pick it up. The metal man was dangerously close, Kankurou leaped away, but Ura stabbed him right where his heart was, sending the poison through his liquidy insides. Though Ura was able to complete her task, the man crashed into her, crushing her into the ground from his heavy, heavy, heavy weight from the thick metal. Ura could barely breathe, through small gasps was she able to get some air in her, but she could smell the poison emitting from his metallic body. Quickly, she felt sand wrap around him, lifted the man off of her and into the air, "Sand Burial..."

Poison seeped onto the floor, their target was finally dead. Kankurou went to Ura, "You ok? Sorry if I ditched you like that, but..you understand."

Baki picked up the headband and placed it in a bag on his side, "Good, at least none of you were killed, which is surprising..."

"When can we go home now?" Kankurou asked bluntly, "I'm starving..."

"We have to report our mission to the Kage here so he understands that we did not commit a real murder," Baki stated, "That will take a few days, then we can leave."

"That sucks..." Kankurou groaned.

They all left, but Ura walked a few feet behind Gaara, if it wasn't for his posture, she would've been too afraid to move when her chance came. If she had not looked over at Gaara, she would've felt danger was all around her, that she would die, but...just looking at how calm he was, it was because of him she was alive, somehow or another.

Baki chatted with the Tsuchikage for awhile as the sun began to rise slowly, Temari, Kankurou, Ura, and Gaara were given a small shrine to live in due to the fact three of the four teammembers were descendents of the Kazekage. Ura was in the training room, she was getting better at her aim, Ura was trying to hit the targets with a vertical line of hari. Her hands were, once again, cut up badly to where blood was all over her arms and hari. Temari walked in and held her nose, "Wash your hands, you stink of blood!"

"I'm training right now, that can wait," Ura stated, "I'm getting better at this..."

"Oh come on, Ura, go wash your hands and practice after your done," Temari grabbed Ura's wrist.

Gaara slowly passed the door, but paused when he, too, caught the scent of blood. Then, a look in his eyes came forth, none that Ura has ever seen before, like a menacing look that urned for the feeling, the taste, the smell, the presense of blood all around him. Temari's eyes widened, she tugged Ura to the bathroom and made the young kunoichi wash her hands, "Don't ever do that again when you're around Gaara!"

"Do what!? What did I do?" Ura asked as she tugged away to dry he hands.

"You know he has Shukaku inside of him, and that beast loves to kill and do anything to have blood dripping near him. Common sense, Ura, Gaara will change into someone you don't want to see when he's in the zone of murder. Last night was nothing to him, killing that man was a sinch for him, but if Gaara is facing off with someone his own strength, then he'll go insande," Temari explained, "I hope you never have to see that..."

"Oh...thanks for warning me," Ura looked away.

Temari left the bathroom and went to her own room, Ura continued to train, but again, her hands bleed. Hours passed, Ura had neglected to wash the blood off of her hands, but she realized how bad she was losing blood. Her vision began to get blury, and she was feeling very exhausted, though she could continue for hours on, but didn't feel like it. Ura nearly collapsed onto the floor, but she grabbed onto the wooden target she had been using, pulling herself up.

"Hey Ura, you wan- WHAT THE HELL!?" Kankurou ran over to her, "What are you doing!?"

Ura managed to stay awake, but didn't have the strength to speak, he layed her on the ground and began to bandage her arms. When he finished, he propped her up against her target and used the healing scroll on her, replenishing all of the blood she had lost, "Bandage your arms, so you won't bleed when you use your hari."

"Thanks..." Ura smiled at him, then stood up, "Speaking of hari, I have to continue training for a few more hours."

"I don't think you should do that, it's noon, and you haven't had anything to eat in awhile. You're looking really sick, Ura, your bones are starting to show," Kankurou commented, "It's not really that pretty on a kunoichi, maybe on porn models, but not on a ninja."

"Of course you would know..." Ura rolled her eyes as she put away her hari, took her umbrellas, then left.

Ura place her hari bag and umbrellas in her room, then went down to the kitchen to get something to eat. She looked around the cupboards, but nothing really seemed good to eat at the moment, then she decided on pancakes. The plate of steaming pancakes sat in front of her, she wasn't that hungry, all that was on her mind was, (we all know this one) Gaara.

())()()()()(()()Ura's day dream:::

Ura was in a white princess gown, running on a vast plain of lushes grass, running towards her dark night, Gaara. He took off his helmet, allowing the wild wind to tossel his hair without worrying how messed up it would look. She leaped into his arms, Gaara swirled her in the air, then pulled her down to a gentle kiss...

"Oh Gaara," Ura lightly away, kissing his face, "How I loved you for so long...now you see how much I really care."

"I knew you always cared for me, I was just too afraid of you rejecting me," he held her tightly.

"No one will ever reject you again, Gaara, I promise," she kissed his lips lightly, "I promise..."

()()()()(()out of her day dream:::

"I promise..." Ura murmured, her eyes closed softly.

"You promise what?"

Ura's eyes shot up, Temari stood in front of her, drinking some eat, but much worse, Gaara had passed by the kitchen to go to the balcony. Did he hear mumbling? Was she talking aloud!? Oh god was she nervous about him finding out now!

"Don't worry, he didn't hear a thing, all you kept saying was 'I promise, I promise'," Temari commented as she sat across from Ura, "You should eat up, you look like a skeleton."

"So i've heard..." Ura sighed as she poked at her pancakes, "I'm not really that hungry...."

"Gaara doesn't like skinny girls, they're too weak, he likes a girl with meat on her bones to put up a rough fight," Temari said slyly, know how to get Ura to do things.

"Fine...but i'm not hungry," Ura pouted as she began to eat her pancakes.